Uma Ilavarasan
Ph.D. Candidate in Government at Harvard University
Teaching
I have taught graduate and undergraduate courses in quantitative methods and comparative politics. In July 2025, I received a Teaching Certificate from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. In every semester I was eligible, I earned a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, and my mean overall evaluation is 4.8/5. As a teaching fellow, I have experience with the following courses.
- GOV 1114: Law & Inequality Spring 2023, Spring 2024.
- Hybrid lecture-seminar on the comparative politics of legal design, enforcement, and evasion.
- GOV 1249: Authoritarianism Fall 2023.
- Introductory survey of trends and patterns in authoritarian politics.
- GOV 2001: Quantitative Social Science Methods I Fall 2022.
- First course in the Government Department's Ph.D.-level quantitative methods sequence.
I have advised six undergraduate theses. In May 2025, I was awarded the Harvard Government Department's Cheryl B. Welch Thesis Adviser Award. I also serve as a departmental concentration advisor, assisting approximately 40 students per year with course selection and other aspects of their academic lives.